


honey, I'll be there for you

by siren_songs



Series: Geraskier Works [4]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Getting Together, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 12:55:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22496455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siren_songs/pseuds/siren_songs
Summary: Geralt has hurt Jaskier, so many times, and all of the grief he has been ignoring finally catches up with him.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Geraskier Works [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618192
Comments: 21
Kudos: 1055
Collections: GERALT AND JASKIER ARE FUCKING GAY





	honey, I'll be there for you

It took three days for something in Geralt to snap, and for him to go after Jaskier.

Their reunion had been quiet and short and unimpressive; he’d spotted the bard in a tavern, nursing a tankard of ale and scowling at it like it had personally offended him. Then he’d looked up, perhaps sensing Geralt’s eyes on him—and their gazes had locked, and Jaskier had sighed, and Geralt had taken that as invitation to go over there.

“I didn’t mean it,” is the first thing he says.

“I know,” Jaskier responds, something unnameable and unreadable and likely unnoticeable to those who didn’t know him scrawled plainly across his face, and then Geralt had sat by him and they’d drunk in silence.

It doesn’t feel like enough. It’s been eating at Geralt’s insides, how _quickly_ the bard had forgiven him, but the next morning when he’d met Jaskier in the tavern to break his fast the bard had been all smiles and easy laughs, and something in Geralt’s chest began its slow slide to breaking.

He isn’t sure what it is yet, but he will.

He and the bard leave together, Roach a huffing presence who accepts Jaskier’s pat and the offer of an apple with the same ill grace as she always does, and it is— _should be_ normal, but there is a tightness to Jaskier’s shoulders and the silences between them are just a little too long, a little too long, and Geralt doesn’t know how to fix any of it.

He wants to fall to his knees and beg the bard’s forgiveness. He wants to take shake the bard off like Roach does a fly and ride off without him and never look back. He wants—

He wants this tight feeling in his chest to go away, the feeling that every breath he takes isn’t _quite_ enough, and he’s not sure how to go about fixing it. Or even putting what he’s feeling into words. He’s never had to do so before.

~~~

It has been a week since Jaskier fell back into step beside Roach, fell into the easy niche he’s carved out for himself in Geralt’s life, a niche Geralt hadn’t even known was _there_ until suddenly Jaskier wasn’t in it anymore, and Geralt manages to get a contract.

“Vampire,” the alderman tells him, a grimace twisting his face from a friendly, sun-weathered countenance into a bleak, frightened mask. “Nasty bitch. Don’t know what to do about her.”

Geralt names his price, and the alderman accepts easily, not bothering to try and barter. Desperate, then.

“You’ll stay behind,” he tells Jaskier, his stomach twisting at the bard’s incredulous expression.

“What, am I not good enough for hunts anymore?” he demands, his tone coldly furious.

“it’s too dangerous,” Geralt tries, but Jaskier is having none of it.

“You’ve never said that before.”

 _And how many times have you nearly died because of my apathy? How many times have you been hurt because I was careless?_ Geralt does not say. Instead, he grunts out a, “fine,” and that is that.

The woods are dark and the moon is a slim sliver in the sky, and the silence between the trees, between the two of them, is deafening.

“Quiet night,” Jaskier remarks. “Where do you think she’ll be?”

“ _Hush,_ ” Geralt hisses, straining his ears. She could be right behind them and he wouldn’t know until her fangs were in his neck if the bard doesn’t _quiet down_.

Miraculously, he does, and they’ve walked out into a clearing that gives Geralt a reasonably line of sight in all directions, so he thumps his bag down and Jaskier sits next to it.

“I’ll get the fire started, shall I?”

“No fire,” Geralt tells him brusquely. “Can’t ruin my night vision. And she’ll smell it.”

“Oh, and she’s not smelling my _blood_ ,” Jaskier mutters, but he doesn’t argue more and Geralt lets the soreness of upsetting the bard again sink in, like salt in a wound. _It’s for his own good_ , he reminds himself.

Somewhere, a twig snaps.

Both of them are stock still, Jaskier’s heart beating loud in Geralt’s ears, neither of them taking deep breaths as they strain to hear.

“I’m going out there,” Geralt tells him. “Keep this on you.”

It’s a silver dagger, ornately decorated and spectacularly well-made—a gift he received from the dwarves upon climbing down that mountain. They’d taken rather a liking to Jaskier, so it makes sense that it should protect him now.

“What?” Jaskier hisses, eyeing the dagger with no small amount of dread. “I can’t fight, Geralt!”

“I once saw you take two bandits out with only your lute,” Geralt hisses back, and Jaskier colours.

“They were only bandits,” he mutters. “I hadn’t thought you’d seen that. You never mentioned it. Besides, a _vampire_ is not that same as some ragtag bandits!”

Geralt feels a little bad for bringing up the lute incident, but at the time he hadn’t known how to say what he wanted to say—that he was impressed, that it had been a good fight, that he was proud of the bard—and by the time Jaskier and Yennefer had given him the words to express himself it had been far too late to bring up.

“You’ll be fine,” he tells Jaskier. “I’ll get her before she even comes close to you. But I don’t think she wants to come near while we’re together.”

“She is going to come for me immediately,” the bard says seriously. “I am going to be eaten, and you are going to come across my broken body and fall to your knees and _weep_ , you grumpy old man, and I want my grave to be the most spectacular—”

“Alright,” Geralt cuts him off, a touch of annoyance to his tone that makes Jaskier smile—his first real smile, Geralt thinks, since he met up with him again.

“Go on! Do your witchering! I’ll stay here and be bait,” Jaskier tells him, settling down more comfortably and drawing his cloak tighter around him.

Leaving the bard there, so exposed, feels like the worst thing Geralt has ever done—there is a physical pain in his stomach as he leaves Jaskier behind, only getting tighter and tighter the further away he walks, and he almost turns back on several occasions.

But he needs to do this, and the bard can’t be by his side when it happens, or he will _die_ , Geralt is sure. He’s protecting him.

Another twig snaps, to his right, and he has his sword up and at the creature’s throat before she can even open her mouth.

She smiles delicately, her beauty so terrible it almost hurts to look at, and he growls, low in his throat.

“Like a dog!” she exclaims, delighted. “Tell me, will your pup bark too, when my brother kills him?”

His heart drops out to his feet. The thing he had felt breaking, that sharp pain that takes his breath away and makes him wince, finally shatters, piercing his chest through with a hundred tiny slivers, and he _roars_ , and he does not remember how he kills her, only that the next moment she is at his feet and she is dead.

He crashes back towards Jaskier, his heart curiously still and silent in his chest, and he wonders if it really _is_ broken. If that is even possible. He’d thought it had happened when Yennefer had left him, when her scent had faded away on the wind like it had so many times before, but he knows in his heart of hearts that she will be just fine without him, that she is stronger than he could ever be.

Jaskier is different. Jaskier wears his heart on his sleeve and he jumps without looking, and Geralt led him here and Geralt got him killed and Geralt doesn’t know that he will ever get up after this, if the weight of Jaskier on his conscience will be too much for him to bear.

The clearing is ripped up when he gets there. The ground has had deep furrows gouged out of it, and splintered bits of tree are scattered about like blossom, and the scent of blood is thick and cloying and Geralt sees _red_.

The vampire has Jaskier’s neck jerked back, his lips attached in a lover’s embrace, and blood spurts when Geralt rips the monster away and kills him, too.

Jaskier falls to the ground, boneless, blood spilling everywhere.

“Shh—shh, _don’t talk_ ,” Geralt whispers to him, somehow suddenly right beside him, his hand covering the bard’s neck and the other drawing him into his lap.

“You’re alright, you’re alright, _you’re alright_ ,” he repeats, over and over again, more to himself than to Jaskier. He is looking up at him with—with something in his eyes. Fear. Disgust. Geralt doesn’t want to call it _trust_ , doesn’t want to know how deeply he has betrayed this man—this man who has followed him across a Continent, has put his life into Geralt’s hands, and the witcher has thrown it, thrown _him_ , so carelessly away that it is no wonder people call him _monster_.

“Not—your fault,” Jaskier manages to hum. “Don’t—blame you. Not your fault. _Not your fault_.” It is a mantra, a repetition, and gasp of blood and life as it drains away from him, that drills into Geralt’s skull and suddenly it is too much.

“I loved you,” the bard says then, queerly coherent. Their eyes meet, and Geralt feels a stinging in his eyes, one he hasn’t felt in years, _decades_. “I loved you Geralt, so much— _so much._ Please tell me you knew that. Please tell me,” Jaskier whispers, and his eyes roll back in his head and he gurgles before Geralt can tell him _I didn’t_ , before Geralt can tell him _I love you too_.

Jaskier stops trembling, and Geralt takes his hand away, and cries.

Then he crawls to his potions bag. If this can’t save him, nothing will, and his mind is silent and still as he measures out the highest dose a human can possibly take before they die—and with his blood loss, Jaskier still might—and pours it into Jaskier’s mouth.

He takes a salve, and pours it over the bites in Jaskier’s neck, where it hisses and fizzes and the skin bubbles and the wounds begin to knit back together, horribly and grotesquely but _it’s working_.

Jaskier swallows.

It’s all Geralt can do but wait.

~~~

Jaskier wakes up, and immediately regrets it.

“Ngk,” he says, wisely.

Then there is water at his mouth and a hand cupping the back of his head, and he drinks quickly, his mouth horribly dry and his throat is _so sore_ and the water is taken away before he has had his fill.

“You drink too fast, you’ll make yourself sick,” a rough voice tells him, and Jaskier winces at the noise.

“Geralt,” he greets hoarsely, because who else could it be. “How _fucking much aclcohol_ did I drink?”

There is a pause, and then, “you don’t remember?”

Jaskier hesitates, too. “That sounds ominous.”

“Jaskier—”

The pain, the blood, the _fear_ hits him like a cannonball and sends him reeling.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he manages to choke out, and then Geralt is there, holding him, drawing him close, and in all the years, all the decades he has travelled with Geralt, and faced down monsters of every ilk and stitched up wounds that would kill a normal man, they’ve never done this. Not once.

Sinking into the embrace, tears on his cheeks, Jaskier cannot help but wonder why.

“You’re alright,” Geralt tells him, his voice queerly shaky, and lets Jaskier gasp out the last of his sobs.

He rests his head against Geralt’s chest; feels the witcher rest his chin atop Jaskier’s head, and they sit there.

“Do you remember what you told me?” Geralt asks him suddenly, and Jaskier almost cringes.

“Gods, was it embarrassing? If I told you to write to my mother, don’t even consider it—she’s a hateful old witch and she’d only—”

“You told me you loved me.”

Jaskier draws back and looks at Geralt helplessly, an _oh, fuck,_ on the very tip of his tongue when Geralt says—

“And I told you I loved you, but you’d passed out.”

His heart stops. The ground beneath him gives way and he is freefalling, hurtling downwards, his heart in his throat and his lungs in an impossible vice, his eyes still locked onto Geralt’s.

“Say—say it again,” he whispers, because he needs to be sure.

“I love you.” It is all he has ever wanted to hear, for _years_ —for years, and here it is.

 _Better late than never,_ he thinks wildly to himself, a hysterical laugh bubbling to his lips, and Geralt frowns so Jaskier leans forward to kiss it away.

Their mouths meet and stars explode, and worlds collide, and the world ends and then begins again, and they’re still here, kissing, hot and wet and slick and _so so_ good.

“I love you,” he breathes against Geralt’s lips, because he figures the witcher ought to hear it too.

“I love you,” he repeats, again and again and again, kissing him over and over, his hands reaching up to twist into the witcher’s silver hair, crawling almost onto his lap.

“I love you,” he tells him again—and stops, and sits back somewhat, because Geralt has begun crying silent tears and that’s _not supposed to happen_.

“Geralt?” he asks uncertainly, and the witcher shakes his head.

“I— _gods_ , Jaskier, you nearly _died and I put you there_ —and how many times have I hurt you? How many times could you have died because of me? After what I said to you on that mountain—I’m _so sorry_ , more than I can say, and I’m not good at apologising I know but _please—”_

“Geralt—Geralt, shh— _shh, it’s alright_ —come here—” and then he’s cradling Geralt’s head against his collarbones as the witcher lets out great, wracking sobs, filled with fear and pain and _horror_ , a great tumbling of emotions that Jaskier has never seen from him before. It is like they had built up, fizzing and fizzing in a corked bottle, shaken to beyond breaking point—and then the dam had burst and the witcher had snapped, and it has all come pouring out, right into Jaskier’s lap.

He rocks the witcher gently, soothing him and petting a hand over his neck, his head, holding him close.

“I forgive you,” he whispers, and Geralt _shudders_ at the words, so he presses a kiss to the top of Geralt’s head in affirmation.

“You shouldn’t,” the witcher whispers back.

Jaskier lifts Geralt’s face, presses a kiss to his forehead, to his cheeks, to his nose—to his lips.

“I forgive you,” he says more firmly, and Geralt closes his eyes, and Jaskier watches as several more tears track their way down his face. He reaches out to brush one away, touch light and fleeting, but Geralt presses his cheek into his hand and grumbles, from deep in his chest—almost a _purr_.

Jaskier crawls more firmly into Geralt’s lap, and wraps his legs about the witcher’s waist.

“I love you,” he leans down to whisper in Geralt’s ear, and Geralt growls properly, grabbing Jaskier by the hips and sweeping him forward, more fully onto the bed.

Geralt’s lips are attached to his neck, licking and kissing and sucking and _biting_ , and he has a hand shoved down Jaskier’s breeches, palming his cock, while Jaskier has a hand around Geralt’s. They’re shuddering against each other and moaning and rutting and it’s _so much_ , Jaskier feels as though he’s burning up in Geralt’s arms—

Jaskier reaches his peak first, seizing in Geralt’s arms, and the witcher follows him with a groan and a string of curses.

They pant against one another, afterwards, Geralt rolling to the side of Jaskier so as not to crush him, entwined so closely that Jaskier can feel Geralt’s pulse through every part of him, sweat drying on their skin.

It seems that Geralt has run out of words. He looks, for a moment, like he wants to say something; he frowns, as though deep in thought, before burying his face into Jaskier’s neck and humming, deep in his throat.

“You’re alright,” Jaskier tells him, his voice sounding hoarse to his own ears.

They fall asleep together, under a shaft of sunlight shining steadily upon them, and for now, they’re both okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up on tumblr at redkelpie!


End file.
